Jonathan Corcoran
No Son of Mine: A Memoir
The University of Kentucky Press / April 2024 / 248 pp / $29.95
Reviewed by Amanda G. Fillebrown / November 2024
Jonathan Corcoran’s debut memoir, No Son of Mine, is an honest and emotional journey through loss and grief. Corcoran, a native of West Virginia who now lives in Brooklyn, was disowned by his mother upon learning he is gay. Despite numerous attempts, they were never able to reconcile. This memoir is a journey of his coming to terms with her recent death and the impact that her actions had on his life and grieving process. Corcoran brilliantly weaves back and forth between the present and the past as he tells his story about his relationship with his mother, the immense pain she caused, the struggles he experienced, and his healing process.
The book is structured into three parts. Part One focuses on Corcoran’s attempts to make sense of the dissolution of his relationship with his mother. Readers are invited into his childhood and given glimpses of his relationship with his mother and then into his college years where he was able to openly explore his sexuality. A central scene takes place on the evening of his twentieth birthday when he receives a phone call from his mother asking if he is gay. When he confirms that he is, her response is, “You are no longer my son.” Part Two concentrates on their numerous attempts to reconcile. He invites her to his wedding and, when she turns away during the kiss, it is the final breaking point for him. He refuses her future pleas for another chance. In Part Three, the author discusses the freedom and growth he has experienced and how he has learned to be things he could not have been with his mother in his life. For instance, in reflecting on his relationship with his husband, he concludes “Sam and I learned to fight less, listen more, and lift each other up.” Ultimately, we understand how the author has found his heritage and redefined his definition of family.
As Corcoran moves back and forth between the various time frames within each part, we begin to understand the relationship he had with his mother and the depth of pain caused by her rejection. We see intimate moments between the two of them: waiting on the couch together for his father to return home from a night out with another woman; sitting at the kitchen table, talking and smoking with one another. There were times he felt like a presence of support in his mother’s life after she’d been abandoned or mistreated by all other men in her life.
Corcoran is up front from the beginning that his relationship with her doesn’t end happily ever after. His mother’s actions and attitudes, and the pain he felt as a result, make the book difficult to read at times. We feel the verbal stabs when she makes such remarks as “You’re going to die of AIDS” and “Are you a faggot, Jon? Maybe you are a faggot.” Despite the way her words cut, he gave her numerous chances: “. . . she always came back, and I always relented.”
Even through his deep hurt, Corcoran offers space to tell her story along with his own. He validates the pain she carried from being abandoned by her own father and abused by her husband. He offers understanding and sympathy but is careful not to use it as an excuse for her actions. He delivers a well-rounded view of his mother, allowing readers to feel moments of compassion for her as Corcoran realizes “Her stepfather was a bad man” or “Her mother never seemed to care.” In a moment of vulnerability, she reveals that her husband, Corcoran’s father, who had died two years prior, “. . . never really loved me.” Corcoran could have villainized her, but instead he shows how unresolved trauma impacts families and the harm it causes, generationally. He reveals the abuse he experienced from his father, who once forced him to fight another kid, stating: “Get back out there and fight him, don’t be a pussy, prove yourself.”
In each place in his story—Elkins, West Virginia; Brown University; Brooklyn—Corcoran explores and documents both his relationship with his mother and his own understanding of himself as a gay man. He masterfully uses comparison and contrast to further define these different experiences. At college, most of his friends were Jewish, which was different from his evangelical Christian upbringing. He compares how he was treated by Sam’s parents to his own mother’s rejection. “They’d welcomed me, a young man dating their son, into their home.”
While this memoir is filled with grief, loss, and anger, there are bright spots that help overcome the darkness. There were others who took him in and loved him, like his West Virginia friend Morgan’s mother, and others, “who had enough love inside them to make up for a thousand broken souls.” Despite his own upbringing, he was able to develop a strong and loving relationship with his husband, Sam. We also get to see the sense of acceptance he experiences when he returns to Elkins after his mother’s passing and attends a local Pride celebration. He reconnects with the heritage that he felt he had lost when his mother disowned him. We also learn how his sisters were present during his childhood and how they tried to protect and shelter him. The ways that various people stepped in, loved him, and took care of him—in ways his mother couldn’t—shine brightly throughout this memoir. While his relationship with his mother doesn’t have a happily ever after, readers see that Corcoran’s life does. A life filled with hope, love, family, and heritage.
Amanda Fillebrown holds an MA in Writing from the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University. She is small business owner in Jeffersonville, Indiana. In addition to writing, she enjoys traveling, watching movies with her husband, and curling up with a good book in her hand and her cat on her lap.